


The Rumbling

by periiwinkle



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Annie's thoughts and feelings on Armin, Armin's thoughts and feelings on Eren, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan Manga Spoilers, based on chapter 131, some perspective on AOT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:40:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29346762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/periiwinkle/pseuds/periiwinkle
Summary: She knew that when the smoke and ash cleared, there would be no bodies to bury.The parade would flatten them into the earth so that they didn’t have to. But they didn’t need physical bodies to know that even if there were, even if they could distinguish ash from human cinders, body parts from debris, the corpses would pile high enough to make even the sky look reachable.And in the end, the land would be stained in colours of crimson and deep mahogany and the rivers would bleed for eternity.A part of her knew any attempt to stop the calamity was futile. Like stopping the rain or the snow.A part of her knew she had caused it.Or simply, Annie and Armin have a conversation at world's end.
Relationships: Armin Arlert & Annie Leonhart, Armin Arlert & Eren Yeager, Armin Arlert/Annie Leonhart, Mikasa Ackerman & Armin Arlert & Eren Yeager, Mikasa Ackerman & Eren Yeager, Mikasa Ackerman/Eren Yeager
Kudos: 34





	The Rumbling

**Author's Note:**

> In which, Annie and Armin have a conversation, and Armin contemplates death and friendship and the weight of saving mankind long after she's gone.

“Eren Yeager,” She whispered. The name was foreign on her tongue. Unused but not unfamiliar. As if she hadn’t mouthed the name on her pretty lips in years. She hadn’t. “The Usurper.”

Annie raised her head from her arms, from the comfort of her huddled figure, to stare at the end of the world. 

The rumbling was loud, and every thunder of titan footstep against the earth shook at her core. She didn’t need to see to know that every heavy step muffled the crying. It silenced the anguished wails and the hopeless pleas of clemency and forgiveness. It quietened the desperate calls of children to lost parents, parents to lost children, friends to friends, people. 

The footfalls were of judgement. They did not know mercy. 

She knew it was why Jean held his hands to his ears as he slept. Because the crunch of bones and the squelch of blood as they marched was deafening. Because even the roar of colossal titans that stretched the length of the sky couldn’t silence what came after the screaming. 

_Nothing._

She knew that when the smoke and ash cleared, there would be no bodies to bury. The parade would flatten them into the earth, so that they didn’t have to. But they didn’t need physical bodies to know that even if there were, even if they could distinguish ash from human cinders, body parts from debris, the corpses would pile high enough to make even the sky look reachable. 

And in the end, the land would be stained in colours of crimson and deep mahogany and the rivers would bleed for eternity. A part of her knew any attempt to stop the calamity was futile. Like stopping the rain or the snow. 

A part of her knew she had caused it. 

They had used hate, raised it, believed it to be their saviour. They had bodied it in armour and unleashed it on Eldia. And as a result, the devil was born, to return the hate they gave it. 

“Annie,”

Annie was familiar with her name. Especially familiar with the way it sounded when it fell of _his_ lips – pretty and delicate. She knew she was anything but. Her hands were permanently stained red and she knew they’d never wash clean even if she spent a thousand lifetimes atoning. So, she didn’t. 

But for a second she could forget where she was, _who_ she was, and pretend that in another life they were friends or more and he was calling to her as sweetly as he was to explore the plains of the great fields of whatever reality titans didn’t exist in.

He’d call to her, professing her name as softly as he did when she was sealed away in her crystal shell, floating between the interim of slumber and consciousness.

She’d spent four years listening to him. If she could, she’d listen a lifetime more. 

The change in his voice had been gradual and she hadn’t even noticed until he’d returned, months rather than his usual weekly visit later. A deep timber, still silvery and soft, had replaced the mellow tenor and if it wasn’t for the minute inflections, the way his tongue curled around certain letters, around her name, she wouldn’t have known it was him. 

But that was a change she could acquaint herself with. And with time, it was all she knew and remembered. She heard the bass in his tone in every image of him now, immortalised in past, present and future.

But in those eternal memories, he was the same. In the physical at least. Long blonde hair and intelligent blue eyes. He was still shorter than the rest of his friends, a little frail and a lot unsure. The same Armin who wasn’t confident in either physical strength or skill. The same Armin who made up the shortage in wit and intellect.

She hadn’t quite prepared herself to have those memories so violently ripped from her possession. The same, yes, but still so very _different._

He was taller than she remembered. Not quite as tall as Connie or Jean, who admittedly towered over their group now, but if she had to estimate, at least a head and then some, taller than her. 

He was still lithe, slender in comparison to Reiner’s broader build, but there was obvious tone and muscle that his expedition uniform, a new assemble of high-tech ODM gear over tight black fabric, latched onto. 

He’d even cut his hair. The honey blonde strands, cut to his ears but evenly trimmed shorter by his nape in a slight nod to Captain Levi’s usual haircut, made it easier to see just how much age had defined his features. 

Annie hated the little Hitch sounding voice in her head. And for a second she was underground again, in the custody of the Survey Corps and Hitch was whispering to her, a poorly concealed smirk pressed against the shell of her ear.

_Handsome._

They were insignificant thoughts she knew. Trivial and inconsequential in the face of the Armageddon. But maybe it was precisely that, because it was the end, that she could allow herself to take comfort in the thoughts that she so long detached herself of.

But fatigue settled on his shoulders and his azure eyes looked distant if not dimmed. And while he stood tall, a whisper of his unsure self, the Commander of the Survey Corps, she couldn’t help but think, tracing over the tense edge in his jaw – _heavy is the head that wears the crown._

“Armin,” Annie echoed back, offering the 20-year-old a quick glance. He was covered in blood, admittedly dry now, and there were two tears in his white shirt from where he’d been shot. The heart and stomach. 

When Connie had all but dragged him in, the same time Mikasa had dragged _her_ in, there was a gaping hole in his neck and the side of his cheek and jaw had been blasted open from gunfire. 

She traced her eyes over the taunt skin briefly. Not even a scar now. Only pink ample flesh knitted over the sites of injury as if it hadn’t been there in the first place. 

“You’ve healed,” She noted simply, and Armin looked down at himself for a second and the small smile he’d conjured up, something that probably passed as an impression of great calm in the face of adversity, slipped a little. For a second, she could see past his guarded expression, walls as high and impenetrable as Wall Maria. He looked _tired._

He didn’t need to tell her to know. Connie had said enough when he’d confided in Jean and Reiner as they put Armin to rest in one of the empty cabins, and she and Mikasa had overheard them speaking. 

Samuel had shot Armin to kill. Connie had put a bullet through his skull before he could. 

And then he turned to Daz, eyes brimming with tears and emotion, furious apologies falling off his lips as Daz thrashed against his hold and yelled hoarse. _Traitor._

Connie didn’t stop until he was unrecognisable. 

“Yeah,” Armin agreed absentmindedly, casting his eyes onto the faraway horizon. Even if they wandered to the ends of the world and beyond, could they really find a future beyond the skyline? 

He wondered if that was what Eren had meant. 

_If we kill all of our enemies on the other side of the sea, will we finally be free?_

“What are we doing?” Annie sighed, and the sound was so heavy, so _defeated_ , that it was enough to break Armin out of his contemplations. 

He wondered if she too shared the same thoughts as him. And he turned to look at her, really _look_ at her, at the long hair draped around her shoulders, at the steely blue eyes that were entirely open to him now and at the way she hung her arms around her knees, curled inwards like she was trying, _failing_ , to hold herself together. _Vulnerable._

She looked lost. And for a second Armin could see the Annie in Bertholdt’s memories – the little girl who’d fought tooth and nail to make her father proud. To return to him the promise of coming home.

Hange had told her that the rumbling would have reached the continent by now. Her father was probably gone and with him, any hopes of gifting him the present of being alive. 

Armin wondered if he’d once looked like that too. Eren had. When the titans had raided his home, destroyed every inch and corner of his childhood and stole his youth. It was what he had looked like hopelessly thundering on Hannes’ back and writhing against his hold as they ran. Yelling until his voice was hoarse and the world blurred under the weight of his tears. 

It was what he had looked like after he’d watched, even when Mikasa looked away, as they plucked his mother from the debris that he had so desperately tried to pull her out of, and bit down on her body, tore at her limbs like bread to satiate their boundless hunger.

Neither of them had had a place to call home since. 

“I don’t know.” Armin answered honestly, taking a seat next to her on the deck of the boat. She was right. He didn’t know what he was doing. None of them did. Even if they managed to stop the rumbling, even if they saved the world and stopped the slaughter of millions of people – what then? Mankind would never remember them kindly.

“You’re a good person.” Annie said quietly, making movement to stand. “Maybe it’s why you haven’t given up on monsters like me. On monsters like Marley. Maybe it’s why you haven’t given up on Eren.”

Armin didn’t respond immediately, and Annie rose to her feet, frowning lightly when she realised there would be no further discussion from him. She didn’t expect him to wrap his fingers tight around her wrist when she stepped to move away. 

The touch was cold, and Annie followed the path from his fingertips to his face. To the blank expression adorned over his handsome features. He wasn’t even looking at her. 

“Sit down.” He told her calmly, and Annie did just that, remarking on the easy authority he commanded with as she did. Maybe it was why Hange had handed him the mantle before she had died. 

“You’re wrong.” Armin told her and Annie waited patiently for him to continue. “I’ve killed a lot of people. Not just soldiers, but innocent people and children too.” 

Armin closed his eyes and for a second he was back at Liberio’s port. He was staring down at the pile of bodies, unprejudiced of age and gender, crushed beneath boat metal and building ruins. The explosion of his transformation had spared no one. 

The death of thousands of innocent people had been a price he’d paid for his home. For _his_ humanity.

He knew it was the same price Bertholdt had paid for his.

And as he stood, removing himself from the nape of the Colossal Titan to stare at the fruits of his sacrifice, the sight and sadness was one he understood now more than ever. 

“And now, I’ve made the choice to betray everyone living on the island where I was born and raised. I’m killing my allies. People I trained with.” Armin sighed. 

_Traitor._ It was what Samuel and Daz had called them. For trying to save the millions of people across the world from mindless slaughter. Because if the world didn’t die, Armin reminded himself, _they_ would. 

To prey or be preyed. To kill or be killed. It was them or the world. Eren had chosen _them._

There wasn’t such a thing as good and evil, Armin thought. No such thing as right or wrong. They were silly notions that people manufactured, devised, fabricated, then preached to make good of their efforts. To lessen the guilt that homed in the aftermath. There were only actions, and then justifications.

“I’ve been a monster as long as you have.”

Annie understood the implication better than most. They were victims of circumstance. Eren to his. Annie and Reiner to theirs. They were heroes of one story and villains of another. 

Good and evil were concrete. As simple as black and white. Armin knew the world was painted in shades of grey.

“I made a promise to Eren once,” Armin told her and for a moment he could pretend that they were kids again. He could pretend that they were sitting on the steps by the river gawping over an open book about the outside world. “That we’d travel outside the walls. I thought it would come true.”

Annie glanced at him. He looked sad. As if reliving happy moments from the past brought him nothing but pain now. She was mouthing the words of her question before she could stop herself. 

“Was it everything you hoped it would be?” She asked him and when Armin closed his eyes, slow and languid, back turned against the endless blue behind him, she knew she had her answer. 

“I got to see the sea.” Armin replied, but Annie noted that he wasn’t smiling. Not a single hint of peace or content. As if his dreams had come true and all that he’d been left with was reality. 

Only the cold, brutal, _truth._

_If we kill all of our enemies on the other side of the sea, will we finally be free?_

In the wake of actuality, what was empty fulfilment? What importance could the sea possibly hold in the face of the truth?

And though the outside world was nothing like what Armin had dreamed of, no freer than they were; cruel and war-torn, he wanted to believe that there was still a world out there they didn’t know about yet. 

They didn’t speak for a while. Instead, they sat in each other’s presence and basked in the little comfort they had left. There weren’t enough years in a lifetime, let alone the end of the world, to discuss everything. By the wake of tomorrow, she’d leave them to live the last moments of her life, tired of fighting, for herself, and he’d leave, with them, to spend the last moments of his life fighting for humanity. 

_You’ve been fighting your entire life. So, I won’t ask you._

Maybe it was futile. Maybe it was hopeless. Maybe Armin knew that too. But they wouldn’t know. Not unless they tried. Not unless they marched forward. Not unless they abandoned everything. Not unless they rose above monsters. 

Tomorrow would come. They didn’t know what came with it. 

“Sasha – “Annie started but Armin cut her off as soon as she began. Ripping the words of her tongue as soon as they fell because Sasha was _his_ friend, because _he_ knew her, because _he_ deserved the privilege of sending her off before anyone else, who didn’t, did.

“She’s dead.” Armin said, and Annie’s eyes didn’t widen, nor did she play pretend and gasp in surprise. She wasn’t surprised. She had expected as much when she’d duly noted her absence in the register of all her friends. But death was an occupational hazard. In their line of work, death came either today or tomorrow. 

_Give your hearts. Give your body too._

And yet, no matter how much she tried to rationalise it, heaviness bore on her chest and she couldn’t help but wonder why she was sad too. Was it because they had trained together? Was it because they had bunked together? Was it because Armin had laughed over her crystal shell recounting stories about her and his friends?

“She died the day Marley declared war on us.” Armin told her and Annie noted just how woeful he sounded. How distant. How far away. “When Eren declared war for us.” 

Annie had heard about the day from word of mouth. She had heard enough from Hitch who had told her that Eren had abandoned Paradis Island for Marley without the notice of Hange or Levi or the rest of the special operations squad. 

Months of silence. Then a letter.

Help him and declare war on the world, or ignore him and lose the founding titan. He would fight either way. 

It was fitting for the Attack Titan, Annie thought. There could be no better or _worse_ candidate for it than Eren Yeager. If there was anyone who could abandon humanity, all of mankind, for the sake of freedom – it was none other than _him._

“I-“Annie started but the look on Armin’s face was enough to silence her. What right did she have to apologise now? What right did she have to be sad? 

A few years ago, they had been her enemies. A few years ago, she wouldn’t have hesitated to kill them if it meant that she could go home. If it meant that she could return to her father. What significance did Sasha’s death make to her now when it didn’t when she’d killed _him?_

A part of her told her that it wasn’t her fault, but she knew it was. A part of her told her she had no choice, but she knew she did. She’d been fighting her entire life. It was why she had chosen not to now. 

Because she didn’t want to fight. Not Marley, her family. Not Paradis Island, her friends. She didn’t want to kill anymore. Because she _did_ care. Because she _was_ sorry. Because she didn’t have the strength to see it to the end like they did. 

“Annie,” A voice called out to her before she could thread her thoughts into a coherent sentence, and she looked up at Armin quickly. He hadn’t spoken.

“Annie,” It was Mikasa who had called, standing by the steps that led down to the harbour where they’d docked to fix the flying boat that would set them a sail for Eren. 

Annie thought, maybe for the first and last time, that Mikasa was so beautiful it was frightening. Maybe it was the unique features that came with being the last of her kind. Maybe it was just her, with her ebony hair that fell against her ears and her sharp features and her feline-like midnight eyes. Maybe it was because she had grown taller.

Mikasa looked between the two of them briefly but her gaze didn’t linger and if she thought anything of it, she didn’t mention. Annie stared at her and wondered if it was a childhood friend thing. They all looked so _exhausted._

It couldn’t be helped she decided. It was Eren after all. 

“Come help me move equipment from the ship to the warehouse.” Mikasa offered, and Annie’s eyes traced over her outfit, the same one Armin was wearing. ODM gear over a white shirt and dark trousers. Annie couldn't help but think Mikasa looked a little odd, out of place, as if something of her very being-ness was missing. 

_Oh._

No scarf.

“Sure,” Annie replied, rising to her feet and glancing at Armin briefly in the process. Maybe it was better left unsaid. Maybe it was just the way things were. She didn’t deserve her redemption arc. She didn’t even deserve him.

“Armin,” Mikasa spoke again, this time quieter, as if she wasn’t sure she was going to call him at all. Annie realised quickly that their relationship seemed strained a little. Tense. “You should help the others with the flying boat.”

Armin looked up and the two caught eyes. There were years of friendship between them and they could exchange understanding and conversation without the need for words. But their expressions were heavy and guarded and for the first time in years, they were _unreadable_. Almost foreign. 

Mikasa looked away and disappeared deeper into the ship. Annie followed. And Armin only stared at their backs long after they had gone. 

_What was he doing?_

Armin didn’t stop the dry sob when it rose in his chest. Instead, he ducked his head, clasping tightly onto the strands of his hair in the hope that it would ground him. He wanted to scream. He wanted to lay down and sleep forever.

Armin couldn’t help the bitter thought when it came. Couldn’t help but think that Erwin and Hange were _lucky_. Couldn’t help but be jealous. Because they’d burdened the responsibility as long as they had and then had welcomed the peace that came with non-existence. Jealous because they could rest. 

Jealous because they were dead, and he wasn’t. 

And in their wake, they’d left him, foolish Armin who didn’t know how to save his friends let alone mankind. Foolish Armin who should have died four years ago, when he’d been all but burnt ash and rotting flesh. 

How could he justify his own life when all of his friends were corpses? When he knew they were staring at him expectedly now? 

_Hange._

_Sasha._

He wanted to mourn them, and desperation and pain coiled tightly in his chest, gnawing at his insides until they ached. Until it hurt to _breathe_. But his eyes were dry, and the tears never came. There would be time for that later.

A part of him wanted to run after Annie, apologise for simmering bitterly at the mention of Sasha. A part of him didn’t. The monster housed in his innermost thoughts hated that she could look so forlorn when it had been _them_ who’d known her. 

It had been them, not her, who had cried over her dead body on board the flying ship, muffling harrowing sobs behind their palms. 

Because it had been Connie who had shook her, a soft manta of her name over and over as Jean tended to the bullet in her heart, yelling at the clamour of soldiers, begging her to keep her eyes open, to stay with them until they got home.

Because it had been Mikasa who had sat by her grave, from dusk till dawn, huddled close to her resting place because she was afraid that Sasha would get lonely. Because she’d promised to keep her company a little longer, just until she was certain she’d found her way to the friends waiting for her on the other side.

Because it was them, the last of the Southern Division of the 104th training corps, the hand-picked cadets of Captain Levi’s squad, that had been her _friends_. Friends who had laughed and cried together, who ached and starved together, who hurt together. 

No. Armin amended. Not friends. _Family_.

A tight knit family who had spent seven years getting to know the ins and outs of each other. It was something Annie couldn’t understand. It was something Reiner couldn’t. 

But what did Armin know about friends? What did he know about understanding them? What significance did time hold in determining the connection that existed between them?

He’d known Eren longer than any of them had. Before the titans had come. Before Mikasa had slotted herself into their lives, in the space that lived, large enough just for her, between them. 

A bitter laugh bubbled in Armin’s chest. The truth was brutal, but it was honest. And though Armin wanted nothing more desperately than to be wrong, he knew the truth was that he didn’t know Eren. 

He’d spent his entire life pretending that he had. And even if it were once true, even if he had been able to decipher all his intricacies – the unspoken dialogue, the acknowledgement and understanding were eons away now. Hidden behind tortured green eyes that screamed that he _knew_ , but never told.

And Armin could spend an eternity searching for his friend, rummaging and foraging through his secrets so that he could understand, _he wanted to understand_ , but his eyes were quiet, and Armin saw nothing past the vacant stillness now. 

_Soulless._

As if he were looking past them. Maybe towards a bleaker, unavoidable future, Armin didn’t know, but one he mourned and apologised for yet committed to all the same. 

As if destiny held him captive and he was hostage to his own memories. As if fate forced him forwards. Because there was no other way. Because he had no choice. 

_If there’s another way, Hange, tell me._

And as Armin listened, to the rumble that sounded the dawn of mankind, he couldn’t help but think that even though he didn’t know Eren anymore, even if they were little more than strangers now, he _could_ understand. Even just a little bit.

Hadn’t he been the one to tell Eren, when he’d cried until his body shook, that they couldn’t change anything unless they abandoned everything? That they had to let go of their humanity to rise against monsters?

Hadn’t Mikasa told him that the world was cruel? Either they won and lived, or they didn’t and died. They had no other choice but to fight because they couldn’t win unless they did. Because they would never be free otherwise. 

Wasn’t Eren doing just that? Wasn’t he doing exactly what he and Mikasa had told him to do? How could he not understand then?

Armin shook his head. Understandable. Not justifiable. Never justifiable.

With a heavy sigh, Armin rose to his feet, none the more clear or certain but ready. Eren would fight. He knew with certainty that they would too. But he would find Eren and he would free _him_. 

Armin liked stories. He hoped both of them lived to tell this one. 

With one last glance to the sea, he turned towards the harbour. Mikasa was right, he had work to do. His friends were expecting great things from him. How else could he answer Erwin and Hange when he met them again? How else could he tell all the fallen soldiers that their sacrifice hadn’t been in vain? How else could he face Sasha and Marco? 

They’d made it so far. It was only right that he’d see it to the end.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I do hope you enjoyed reading this. Quite obviously, much of this was inspired by chapter 131. Of course, I took some creative liberties (let us pretend that Hange was killed earlier and Armin hadn't gotten around to telling Annie about Sasha's death) for the sake of some introspection. 
> 
> Reading the manga is always quite an upsetting ordeal (especially when you love Eren as dearly as I do) and so, this was my take on trying to sympathise with the characters, trying to understand their hopelessnesses, their thoughts and feelings on love, death and friendship, and trying to put them, their tragedy, into words. 
> 
> More than anything I wanted to capture the essence of Isayama's brilliant writing: that there is no right and wrong and so, there are no sides. Good and bad are fragile things and in some way, shape or form we are all victims. Yet, no less guilty. 
> 
> Who better to spearhead those contemplations than the voice of reason, Armin? 
> 
> I tried to set up parts of this story so that I could continue it and focus on other characters and their thoughts (and many they must have!) on Eren, on the rumbling and etc. This part focused on Annie's feelings towards Armin, and Armin's feelings towards Eren. The next will focus mostly on Mikasa. Jean, Connie and Reiner will follow after. All will take place in the milieu of a conversation. 
> 
> Once again, thank you! All comments, kudos and criticisms are very much appreciated.


End file.
